Final answer:
A cross join is used to combine all rows from two tables without any matching condition, producing a Cartesian product of the rows.
Step-by-step explanation:
A cross join is used when the related columns between two tables cannot be joined through an equal sign. When performing a cross join, every row from the first table is combined with every row from the second table, producing a Cartesian product of the rows, which can result in a very large number of combinations if both tables have many rows. Cross joins do not require a specific condition to match the rows and therefore are different from inner and outer joins which typically use equality or other comparison operators to join tables.